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Dan Frederick Schramm

From 1992 until September 1998 I was the Vice President of Quaterra Communications Corporation. I created Quaterra, supported by a group of 25 stockholders, to provide a TTY/TDD accessible computer bulletin board system called AbleServ for the deaf and hard of hearing. This was before the web existed.

I invented a number of products for the deaf/hoh including TTY Vision which allowed a color television to be used as the TTY display, and TTY Universal Voice Mail. I wrote SBIR proposals for these and other products, winning 4 SBIR contracts totaling $430,000. I was the subject of a number of news and feature articles in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel business section.

You can see products that I have invented on a site set up to house Quaterra archival information, as well as awards that I have won from the State of Wisconsin. The photograph shows officials of the Wisconsin Small Business Innovation Consortium giving me the last award we won in 1998. In 1999 the board of directors decided to close down the company.

On a personal note, I have been involved in the Milwaukee gay community for over 25 years. In fact, I produced the first printed guide to the Milwaukee Gay/Lesbian community in 1975, and one of the first anywhere which had photographs of the nightclubs inside and out, and photographs of other attractions. It had quite an impact, offering a centerspread of scantily-clad young men, and a nude illustration on the back with the caption, "We'll Be Back", plus coupons which included free drinks. This was rather daring at the time. Another first was the groundbreaking Hunter Fine Arts Society in 1973 which offered a catalog of gay/lesbian art, books and jewelry, together with a monthly magazine. This was an idea that was before its time and no magazine would even let us use the word "gay" in our advertising.

I am proud and out. I marched in the October 11, 1987 first March on Washington for Gay & Lesbian Rights, and the 1993 National March on Washington, New York's "Stonewall 25" Celebration, and took part in the National AIDS Quilt Memorial Weekend in Washington, D.C. October 11-13, 1996 (see photos and listen to sound files on the GLINN news site). I take part in our pride celebrations here, including GLINN's booth at Milwaukee's PrideFest, and have contributed money and services to numerous gay non-profit organizations, plus much more. Now in southern Florida I am getting involved in our community and starting a new life free of the cold weather of Wisconsin.

In fact, many of those who were there will recognize the special numbered woven bands shown below that were only available at the March on Washington and at the Stonewall 25 celebration. Go to the Quilt Weekend Page in the GLINN News area to read our coverage of and see photos of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Weekend in Washington, D.C.

GLINN started off in 1986/87 doing the phototypesetting, Photostats and other production work on both of Wisconsin's gay publications -- In Step Magazine and Wisconsin Light -- for six years. Although we got out of the typesetting business when laser printers started getting economical for small publications, we shot Photostats for Wisconsin Light. until September 1996. We had a vertical process camera and it produced better screened prints than any scanner and laser printer could. We also helped out with various computer tasks and taking photographs. Of course, technology changed and we switched to a fully digital facility. The process camera and our darkroom setup were given away to a gay photographer and artist.

You can read more about the History of GLINN Publishing and our current operations by clicking this link.

Today, GLINN Publishing has 25 web sites, most for the LGBT community and was the parent of GLINN Network One, America's Gay Owned and Operated Internet Service Provider. We were the first national ISP especially for the LGBT community, offering dialup access from October 1997 to October 1999 when that portion of our business was sold. We have had gay web sites online since June of 1996. In fact, we have been online since 1988 with a computer bulletin board system, GLINN.NET which is now available on the Internet both by web browser, by Telnet, and by direct dial. GLINN Publishing (now GLINN Media) is also the parent of the Gay/Lesbian International News Network, and the Gay Toons Syndicate. (The gaytoons.com site was sold in 2002.) For ten years we also provided a free voice mail system for the glbt community called GLINN Community Voice Mail.

I also invented a gay adult game called Reality Street -- An EnterActive Game of Gay Decisions (tm) which has the underlying purpose of teaching HIV prevention in a totally new way. This game was funded in part by a SBIR government grant. Small Business Innovation Research, which all federal agencies participate in, offers Phase I contracts for early stage research and development. One in ten of Phase I contracts are awarded Phase II contracts for further research and development. Completed products are not expected in Phase I, however Quaterra was able to deliver a working program to CDC. The programs produced, in full compliance with the contract, were delivered to the Centers for Disease Control. Under SBIR regulations Quaterra retained all rights to the product code. Dan Schramm owned all intellectual property rights to Reality Street. Quaterra subsequently was dissolved and rights to the program were obtained by Reality Street Corporation which plans to use the underlying source code to produce a "Reality Street" game for the LGBT public to play on the web. This effort is currently ongoing. The game consists of a number of interrelated programs written in C++ and Visual Basic. The most cutting edge part of the game is a natural language engine which allows human players to have interactive meaningful conversations with the computerized residents of the game neighborhood. See the site for details. Reality Street was conceived and proposed before the world-wide-web was well known. It was originally intended to run as a door program on a computer bulletin board system. During the first half of 2004 I made two trips to the Ukraine, the last trip lasting four weeks, and I currently have a small team of programmers there working on modifying the game so that it will operate on the internet.

In September 2001 I personally, together with GLINN, moved to Florida. My family had previously moved to Florida over the years, beginning 20 years ago, and it was time for a change. We also felt that Florida was a better location for a gay oriented business such as ours in almost every respect.

Dan F. Schramm

Visit the Gay Gateway to the Web, GLINN.COM

Copyright © 1998-2004 by Dan F. Schramm.